Marin halts Saina's run

Badminton All England: China's Chen Long claims men's singles crown

 Saina Nehwal’s quest to become the first Indian woman to win the prestigious All England Badminton Championship ended in agony after she suffered a heart-breaking loss to Spain’s Carolina Marin in the summit clash here on Sunday.

The World No 3 Indian squandered an opening game lead to go down 21-16, 14-21, 7-21 to the reigning world champion in the women’s singles final that lasted for little over an hour.
 Saina thus failed to emulate her former coach Pullella Gopichand (2001) and legendary Prakash Padukone (1980), who had won the prestigious title in the past.

In the men’s singles final, China’s Chen Long defeated Jan Jorgensen 15-21, 21-17, 21-15 to claim the title.

Saina, who has been competing at the All England since 2007, had never lost to Marin and looked on course for an encore before the World No 6 Spaniard scripted a remarkable comeback in the second game to put paid to the Indian’s hopes at the Barclaycard Arena.

The 21-year-old Marin, who created one of the biggest sensations in badminton history last year by claiming the world championship, created another by becoming the first Spaniard ever to win an All England title.

After dominating the opening game completely, Saina was leading 11-9 in the second but lost steam after the break, as Marin fought back brilliantly and bagged eight out of the last nine points.

In the decider, Marin stamped her authority with her sharp smashes and better movement to completely make it a one-sided contest as Saina could only watch her hopes go up in smoke.

“This is quite amazing for me," said Marin. “I lost to her every time before, so to beat her like this, and in this tournament, is very special indeed.”

A dejected Saina said she lost focus in the decider.  “I just lost focus and began hurrying, which was not right,” she said. “Playing against top players anything can happen at any stage, and you can always get nervous at some point in time. That's what happened here.”

When Saina romped through the first game, it seemed only a matter of time before Marin would roll over. But she had other ideas.

Marin swung the momentum in her favour as she varied the pace and fought fire with fire in the rallies to quickly get into the lead at 12-11 for the first time in the match.

The Spaniard increased the gap to 17-14 with the help of better placement and accurate strokes. She moved into a six-game point advantage with a smash and then roared back into the contest when the Indian hit wide.

In the decider, Marin led 3-1 early on and soon zoomed to 6-2 as there was a visible change in Saina's demeanour. Her strokes started going wayward, even her service returns went wide and her movement grew slower. Defeat was inevitable for her from then on.

Results: Men’s singles: 1-Chen Long (Chn) Jan Jorgensen (Den) 15-21, 21-17, 21-15.
Women’s singles: 6-Carolina Marin (Esp) bt 3-Saina Nehwal (Ind) 16-21, 21-14, 21-7. Mixed doubles: 1-Zhang Nan/ Zhao Yunlei (Chn) bt 4-Tontowi Ahmad/ Lilyana Natsir (Ina) 21-10, 21-10.